Acronyms are several and growing by the day. Facility management platforms love them and sometimes it gets confusing — we’re here to help you. CMMS stands for Computerised Maintenance Management System, whereas CAFM stands for Computer-Aided Facility Management. They both are maintenance management solutions and can be used on their own or paired to strengthen your maintenance operations.
What is CMMS software?
CMMS is a maintenance-first solution that is focused on equipment and facilities. Just like Money Heist, the TV Series, it was a blast when it first emerged, but suddenly everyone turned their heads to a less shortsighted alternative.
Listen, we all have CMMS software in our hearts as it paved the way for better solutions, but ultimately it isn’t much more than a diary that logs work orders and maintenance requests whilst managing the day-to-day activities of both maintenance technicians and facility managers.
CMMS might be short in scope, but it’s popularity isn’t fading out — according to SelectHub, the CMMS software market is projected to reach $1.7 billion by 2028 with an annual growth rate north of 8%. CMMS is a great solution to preplanning and is easy to use, thus being so popular worldwide.
💡For more in-depth coverage of the topic, read our ultimate CMMS guide.
What is CAFM software?
CAFM also aids Facility Managers, but in a different way. It’s quite focused on the workplace as a physical site. By integrating with computer-aided design (CAD) and building information modelling (BIM) files and a zoomed-out perspective of the floor plan, CAFM is the go-to option regarding space and its uses. It also integrates with invoicing systems and tracks equipment condition.
In short, CAFM is perfect to manage company assets and extracting their maximum benefits at the lowest possible cost.
CAFM is a popular option amongst industries such as Property Management, and Logistics & Retail due to its nature. A study by Future Marketing Insights predicts a bright future for CAFM systems as more and more governments adopt its features to help with new tourist and industrial infrastructures — this is especially true in fast-growing markets such as China, South Africa, or India.
It has wider uses than CMMS, yet is still lagging behind the latter — the CAFM market is expected to break the $1 billion mark by 2026, according to MarketResearch.com.
CAFM or CMMS: which one is better?
None of them is better than the other, as they serve different purposes. CMMS is more geared up for maintenance technicians, whereas CAFM is better suited to facility managers. While CMMS is a friendly software that highly enhances the management of work orders, preventive maintenance and report sharing, CAFM is perfect for space and assets’ management, besides being more robust on the reactive maintenance side of things.
Differences between CAFM and CMMS
Although they are both tools to facilitate the work of FMs, CAFM and CMMS are rather different tools. CMMS allows managers to track records of equipment and interventions but is quite limited when it comes to budget management or any other integration, actually.
CAFM, on the other hand, integrates seamlessly with CAD files and invoicing software, but needs to improve in the preventive maintenance department.
Similarities between CAFM and CMMS
As computerised facility management tools, they exist to manage facilities and maintenance teams. What they have in common is a shared set of limitations regarding automation, scalability, and scope.
Sure, CAFM and CMMS can be paired and do a reasonable job in facilities’ management, but they’re clearly lagging behind solutions such as IMMP. Any mid-sized or large company will be left with a second-rate solution when using CAFM or CMMS, even when combining both in their operations.
What’s an alternative to CAFM and CMMS?
CAFM and CMMS are both powerful software whose market share is still growing and they’re both going nowhere, but would why you solve today’s issues with yesterday’s solutions? Enter IMMP, another acronym, albeit an almighty one.
Intelligent Maintenance Management Platforms (IMMP) is a 5.0 tool for a 5.0 industry. A time-saving, cost-slashing platform that drastically improves your assets’ management, SLAs, automation processes and data reporting and analysis.
With an IMMP such as Infraspeak, you have access to an all-encompassing platform that enables you to manage costs, work orders, assets, compliance and documents in one place. Although CAFM and CMMS are respectable, sound systems, IMMP is a clear improvement on both solutions.
In all fairness, CAFM and CMMS might be proper choices for your company and do the job for you. Small businesses with few facilities or tangible assets to look after are unlikely to need a more complex alternative at the moment, but chances are those same companies will grow and their services and problems will need a different answer.
With an IMMP, you have a comprehensive and flawless solution right off the bat, regardless of your company size and industry. Why? Let’s find out.
👉 Powerful integrations with other software
The ability to incorporate multiple apps into one single platform is unmatched — use Power BI to untap meaningful insights and make informed decisions; integrate with your existing PHC account and manage clients and suppliers; access Salesforce and Zendesk for more customer-centric tasks; and even integrate with your existing Slack or Microsoft Teams to facilitate communication between different teams.
👉 NFC technology applied to Maintenance
It isn’t all about software, though. Infraspeak made history by first bringing NFC technology to Facility Management and linking online and offline realms in a unseen fashion. NFC tags can replace room keys in hotels, be used for registering personnel presence and give access to work orders or to-do lists for the maintenance teams.
👉 Connect utilities to save costs and optimise resources
Imagine a tool that allows you to customise all your water, electrical and gas meters in your facilities. Now imagine you can set prices for each and track their usage and respective costs for your company.
With an IMMP you don’t need to imagine it, you can adopt such solutions and better manage and optimise your utilities’ budget.
Whatever size or characteristics of your Business, come have a chat with one of our specialists and know how we can take your operations into the Age of Intelligence.
- Achieve full visibility over PPM.
- Reduce time-to-repair by up to 83%.
- Leverage real-time, in-depth data and analytics.
